After Greg Schiano was hired as the Rutgers football coach last December, he hit the recruiting trail hard. He also brought prospects to the RAC for sold-out Scarlet Knights men’s basketball games.
Rutgers, which was 20-11 overall a year ago, went 18-1 in the “Trapezoid of Terror” and was ranked for the first time in 41 years this past January. The Scarlet Knights fed off of electric crowds that helped push them to victory.
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Now, the hoops team is ranked No. 24 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll. Rutgers is ranked in the preseason AP Poll for the first time since the 1978-79 season. Head coach Steve Pikiell built this program from the ground up.
For 2021, Rutgers and Schiano have 22 commits that make up the No. 24 recruiting class in the country according to Rivals, and he says bringing the prospects to the RAC for games and having the basketball team be good certainly helps the school’s image.
The same goes with football having success aids basketball and other sports.
“I think it does a lot. As you remember when we first got hired, we had a couple events where we brought recruits to the basketball game,” Schiano said on Monday. “You talk about an environment that's one of the top five in the country. We have our recruits sitting there and they're looking to their left and there's the student section going crazy. Those are going to be your classmates right there. And they're fanatical about what's happening on the court. Those are the same guys and gals will be sitting in the end zone in the student section. Now this virus has thrown everything out of whack, but that's huge for us. We can be equally big for them if we can get it going if we can mirror their path. I think great athletic programs feed on each other. In this day and age every game is on TV right. If you want to watch a game you can watch it. It's on phones and kids can watch it anywhere they want. When Rutgers' brand and that block R is out there and it's having success throughout the year, that's great for everybody. It's certainly great for recruiting and that's what we need to do.”
Last December just days after his introductory press conference, Schiano made a grand appearance during halftime of Rutgers’ rout over rival Seton Hall on the hardwood in Piscataway. He got all 8,329 in attendance up on their feet.
It was perfect timing to do it in front of the New Jersey faithful as keeping the best recruits from the Garden State at home at Rutgers is paramount for its success and the rebuild.
“We need to make sure we recruit the best and keep the best here in our area. That's how you build a program and we're going to do that and basketball has already been a big help and they'll continue to be,” Schiano said.
According to KenPom, Rutgers held the sixth best adjusted defensive efficiency rating in 2019-20. The women’s basketball team went 22-9, made the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, and all but surely would have made the NCAA Tournament if it didn’t get cancelled.
The same for the men’s team.
“I'm a big fan and I love the way our basketball team plays. I mean they're tough, they're focused, they're intense,” Schiano said. “I think coach Pikiell is an unbelievable coach and I can't wait to get over there. I wish we had a bye week because usually in a bye week I go watch either (Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer) or the men's team practice. I don't know if we'll be able to do that - maybe some Monday I will - but I think they go about it the right way. I'm excited for them.”
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